“We don’t want to spook Belac.”
“So what’s more important?”
“Both,” Petty said infuriatingly. “How much time have we really got?”
“I don’t know,” O’Farrell admitted. “Not long.”
“If it goes, you’ll have to find another way,” Petty said.
Just like that! O’Farrell thought. “This isn’t easy, you know!”
“No one ever said it was,” Petty said. “What do you need?”
O’Farrell listed the materials he wanted shipped from Washington. He added, “And I want the watchers withdrawn. I don’t want an audience.”
Petty went silent for a few moments. He said, “Just the usual precaution.”
“It isn’t necessary. And they’re amateur. Get them off my back.”
“Okay.” The clumsy sons of bitches, Petty thought. But then O’Farrell always had been good; it was encouraging to know that he still was.
“I mean it,” insisted O’Farrell. “No watchers.”
“Speak to me before you move,” Petty said.
“All right.” He was definitely on hold, O’Farrell knew.
“And well done.”
“It hasn’t happened yet.”
“I know it will,” Petty said. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re our best man?”
Crap, thought O’Farrell. He said, “You don’t have to bother.”
“Another thing,” Petty said, as if he’d suddenly remembered, which O’Farrell knew couldn’t be, because Petty never forgot anything. “Got a query channeled through from Florida. DA’s talking deals with the pilot, Rodgers, in exchange for testimony to a grand jury against the Cuban. DA wants to know if we’ve got a mitigating recommendation, to go with his.”
“No idea,” Petty said. “An indictment against Cuadrado has political mileage; it’ll make some waves and headlines here in Washington. So I guess it’ll be worthwhile.”
“Nothing!” O’Farrell announced shortly. “I don’t think we should recommend any mitigation at all.”
There was a further silence from the other end. Then Petty said, “I thought Rodgers told you all he could.”
“He played with me,” O’Farrell said. “Acted out some B-movie bullshit. What he told me he’s telling the DA. So why does he get the same favor twice?”
“Your decision,” Petty said. “Don’t move without us talking again, okay?”
“I’ll wait,” O’Farrell said, resigned.
Back in the outer section, O’Farrell thanked Matthews, and the station chief said he’d like to offer O’Farrell a drink but knew he couldn’t. O’Farrell, who would have liked to accept and have someone briefly to talk with, said he would have enjoyed it, too, but he had to decline.
The BMW was still in the rear parking area at the Cuban embassy, and O’Farrell settled himself for an indeterminate wait, which in the event wasn’t long at all. Rivera himself came out of the rear door to take the car, and O’Farrell guessed the destination within minutes of the departure. The door of the Pimlico house opened and closed quickly, and O’Farrell thought they had to be pretty anxious to risk a quickie in the afternoon but then remembered they hadn’t been together the previous night and guessed it was a case of catching up.
It
All O’Farrell could do was wait, like he’d promised Petty. He was reluctant to do that; he’d gotten through the last few days, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last.
He attended a church in Kensington on two consecutive mornings, but it didn’t help, not like it usually had. On the second occasion a cleric tried to get into a conversation, but O’Farrell cut the man short, although not rudely.
Church visits were an excuse, he decided. Like a lot of other things.
Apart from the very first few months—or maybe weeks—of their marriage, Rivera could not recall things being easier between himself and Estelle. Her attitude towards him changed completely, to one of friendship he had never known from her, and he positively relaxed in her company, as she relaxed in his. They attended two official receptions. At both she was dazzling and attentive to him, and he actually enjoyed them, and when she went to her assignations with the Frenchman, she did so more discreetly than she had before, not Haunting her early departure and late return as a challenge. They talked about Lopelle only once after her drawing-room revelation. Estelle said his wife had agreed to a divorce and Lopelle himself had accepted Rivera’s terms, believing it would be better for his own diplomatic position, too. Rivera said he was glad everything was going to work out. Rivera was curious to see what the man looked like but had not asked if he were at the two receptions; he didn’t think the man could have been, from the closeness with which Estelle stayed with him.
Estelle even began breakfasting with him, which was something she had never done, and it was at breakfast that she said, “Maxine’s ill.”
Maxine had come to them as a nanny for Jorge and stayed on to act as housekeeper when the boy had grown older.
“What’s wrong?”
“Some flu-type virus,” Estelle said. “The doctor says it’s contagious, so I’m keeping her away from Jorge.”
“Do that,” Rivera said, immediately concerned. “How long will she be off work?”
“I don’t know,” Estelle said.
John Herbeck had worked for them all—Apple and Hewlett Packard and IBM—as a development engineer and still considered himself the best, even though the last of them, IBM, had been a few years ago now. He kept up with everything—all the trade mags and the in-house publications that were slipped to him by friends still in the business—and knew he gave value for money to those who retained him as a consultant on technological innovations. And as a spotter, too, directing buyer to seller. That was the easiest money of all. Less now than there had been, in the halcyon days of Silicon Valley, but still enough to keep him comfortably in the style to which he had become accustomed. But only just. It seemed to be getting more difficult, with every passing month. He was becoming quite anxious to attract new clients.
SEVENTEEN
TOO MANY things were going wrong too quickly, and Belac was making mistakes. Which he acknowledged, and which further upset him; that it was all costing him money upset him most of all. By now he should have gained his entire profit but he hadn’t, because of that damned ten-percent withholding. And trying to handle the Swedish business by letter—actually trying to save money by not going—was a mistake. It had taken nearly a month of correspondence, Belac using the cover of his Swiss shell company, before it became clear from Epetric that the blocking of the VAX order was not their decision but that of the California company, which refused to supply any more material until they were better satisfied with die documentation, as required by the American export authorities.
Nearly a whole month wasted! And now he had to confront the biggest problem of all. America.
Belac conducted his special trade fully aware of its risks and knew every detail of the indictments outstanding against him in the United States. He genuinely considered both to be ridiculous, like so much that COCOM prohibited, because each indictment was for supplying the communist bloc with computers that could be manufactured from components available over shop counters practically anywhere in the West. Ridiculous or not, however, the indictments remained two very good and convincing reasons why he should not risk entering the
